2010...public encounters...

This year i.e., in the last 2-3 days, I made it a point to use public transport. Even though the weather has suddenly become quite chilly, which I would have enjoyed if I wasn't in the grip of slight cold/fever. Nevertheless, the point that I wanted to make is that I reached two places in the last 2-3 days which would have been a 'hell'uva traveling otherwise using erstwhile public transport infrastructure and I was thankful indeed to the Delhi Metro Services.
One of the places was in East-Delhi and to reach there I was quite excited to get onto the old DTC buses and the smaller versions of pvt buses as well. The fares starting from Rs.5 and the next level being of Rs.10 after 4 km. I did overhear concerns of the lower-economic strata users who found Rs.5 as the starting rate for DTC buses as high. Say if a labour earns Rs. 75-100 per day then the min he would spend on the DTC bus would be >=10% of his daily income. Maybe I was suddenly transformed to my old student days when I boarded the DTC, I also asked twice if the little distance that I had to travel required a 10 Rs ticket. Another thing that I noticed was the struggle and the immense peer pressure for young students to dress up and have all the accessories en-vogue. Quite a struggle indeed and to imagine the job scenarios after majority of the useless courses that are available, it would put them into a never ending loop.
Anyways, the Delhi-Metro is most certainly a boon. I was near Shahdara one day and the other day I went to Sec-18 Noida using the Delhi Metro services. Maybe because of the acceptance of the standards that the Delhi Metro has been providing to the users, I still found the conversations in some sections as plain "Thankless" in nature. Am happy that the tax payers money is being seen somewhere with concrete useful results.

I hope to use more public transport just to look around human patterns and to get a lil exercise as well which I need desperately.